A/N: This would make a charming series, although I don't see myself chasing after it for very long. I don't know what possessed me to write it tonight, but I pushed myself until I decided it was a good ending place. I like Wanda in this form, though, corrupted and cold. Inspired by Homestuck, my post-apocalyptic book, and just general dark feelings.
I'll see how people react to it. Warnings: character death, violence, and cruelty. In other words- this is not child tested, mother approved. One more thing- you might want to keep "Black" from Homestuck's fourth album in mind with this fic.
"Make her a member of the Midnight Crew…"
***
"The Absence of Light"
Timmy's nostrils were clogged with the smell of dead bodies. After throwing up his breakfast, lunch, and dinner, he thought there was nothing left. Dry heaving hurt and he rubbed his chest. Twice now he'd been tempted to wish himself well, but there were no godparents left to take his requests. Poof was nowhere to be found and Timmy had discovered his godfather floating upside down in the fish bowl this morning. At first he'd thought it was a prank, until he discovered Vicky in much the same condition, minus the fish bowl.
Now he crept through Dimmsdale Elementary armed with nothing but his wits, so essentially, he was unarmed. He started at every noise and although the hallways were bright, they were also slick and sticky. In a classroom he'd found Crocker bludgeoned by his grade book, along with his fairy catching equipment. A butterfly net had created a noose, although Crocker appeared to have died before it'd been wrapped around his neck.
He didn't know where Wanda was and Poof didn't answer either. He made his way toward the gymnasium, if only because the loudest noise in the school emanated from it. It sounded like a wood chipper, punctuated by occasional screams. The sound sent chills down his back, but he walked forward anyway. Anyone with any sense would have run, but Timmy refused to run. Maybe he didn't have sense. Or maybe he hoped his godmother and god brother were in the gym.
He didn't know. He couldn't think straight, could barely breathe with the smell of rotting flesh in his nostrils, and he kept tearing up. He told himself his eyes were dry, not that he'd started crying over Cosmo's death. Sniffling, he wiped his eyes again. Cosmo…
At the gym doors, he hesitated. He poked his head through and then jumped back. His heart hammered and he licked his dry lips.
"Timmy!" Wanda called in a singsong voice that sounded slightly off. "Timmy, come in here!"
"Wanda?" he asked, although it was obvious who it was. His heart could have given a jack rabbit a run for its money. "Wanda, are you okay?"
"I'm better than okay!" she replied. "Come in here and see this!"
"I think I'm okay in the hallway," he croaked. "Wanda, what happened to Cosmo? And Vicky? And Crocker?'
"How many times have you wished they were gone?" she replied. "Poof! They're gone!"
"Poof!" he repeated. "Is he okay?"
"He's fine," she answered. "He's enjoying life without an idiot running the show."
"What…what are you talking about?" he asked. His skin had gone cold and his stomach roiled. The back of his throat was dry and he kept licking his lips to bring moisture back. He rubbed at his eyes again.
"Nag, nag, nag. That's all Cosmo thought I ever did," she continued. "He said one day I'd nag him to death. So I did."
"You didn't," he gasped. "You couldn't!"
"Aren't you going to wish for something? Anything your heart desires?" she sang. "I wish Cosmo was back from the dead! Sorry, sweetie, I don't do necromancy. Anything else?"
"You killed Cosmo…and Vicky…and Crocker…" He had a difficult time getting the words past his constricted throat. "Not you. No."
"Not Wanda," she mocked. "Never Wanda. Never the sweet little fairy that took all your crap for years and never complained. Not the Wanda you verbally abused or that Cosmo physically abused. Oh, no."
"But you're good!" he protested. He still refused to enter the gym and face what awaited him. He swallowed again, but the lump in his throat wouldn't budge.
"Good fairies go bad," she chirped. "Come on. Are you scared?"
"No," he lied.
"I can smell your fear. Can't you, Poof?" she said. At the last, he broke free of his compulsion to stay away and looked into the gym. Trixie Tang rested in a pool of her own blood near the basketball nets. Her neck was at an odd angle and her limbs were splayed. Timmy couldn't be sure whether her broken neck had killed her or her blood loss beforehand. He felt sick again and dry heaved, collapsing to the floor.
When he'd finished, feeling weak enough to be unable to stand, he looked up. Poof was floating above him and dressed entirely in black.
"No…" he groaned. "Poof, you have to come with me."
Poof's eloquence extended to repeating his name endlessly and coming up with coherent speech. Timmy interpreted it to mean he wouldn't leave his mother, who was currently in human form and standing at half court. Her normally bright pink eyes had intensified, turning red and her yellow shirt had dark red stains. She was staring at Timmy with an odd intensity that made him shudder.
"He's not leaving me," she said and then smiled. "Neither are you, sport."
"This is a dream," he said, dazed. "It has to be. I wish I'd wake up!"
Wanda smiled, shaking her head. She walked slowly toward him, as if walking pained her. She stopped a few feet away and Poof floated to his mother. She stroked the purple curl upon his head and held him close. Timmy shuddered, recoiling and landing on his back.
"I spared you for a reason," she said with a smile.
His mind reeled. "Spared? What do you mean?"
The smile faded. "If you were smarter, you would have understood this sooner. But we can't all be geniuses, can we?"
"I wish…I wish…" Words failed him for a moment and he looked desperately at Poof. "Do something!"
"Sorry, not in the form of a sentence," she mocked. When she ran her fingers through her hair, she left blood streaks in the bun. A strange amulet hung from her neck and glittered under the lights. It was brown, with a swirling black energy inside. Timmy stared, hypnotized by the darkness within.
"I spared Poof because he's my son," she said and then snorted. "Cosmo's influences will go away with time. You…you are still young. There is time enough for you to grow into what I need."
Timmy shook his head. "I don't understand what you want. I don't know what's going on! I wish—"
"Wishes won't help anymore," she commented flatly. She knelt beside him and touched his forehead. Where her fingers brushed against his skin, he smelled sickly sweet iron and saw glitter. Her red eyes had hooked onto his blue eyes and he shivered. He was cold inside.
"I wish Jorgen was here!" he called, hoping that by using his name, Fairy World's ruler would appear. Wanda snorted, and despite the brutality of what she claimed to have done, her touch upon him was gentle. She straightened him into a standing position and held him against her. When he struggled, whining, her grip tightened until it would have meant breaking a bone to get free. He still considered it.
The dark aura surrounding her only manifested when he was close enough to touch her. Then its cloying weight dug into his chest and pressed him into the ground. For the briefest of seconds, Poof looked worried. Then the baby floated behind his mother and kept his gaze away from his god brother.
"Jorgen can't hear you," she murmured. "The link has been broken."
"What link?" he gasped. "Wanda, what's going on? Wanda, you're hurting me!"
"You should be glad I'm not killing you instead," she snapped. With her free hand, she stroked his hair beneath his hat.
Fear contracted his pupils, drained the blood from his face, and made him tremble. His heart raced and he whimpered again, hoping to elicit some sympathy. There was no trace of the loveable caring godmother in Wanda's current expression. Instead, she seemed to be created from steel. Her grip on his arm cut off circulation to his fingers.
Poof said something, too low for Timmy to hear, and she nodded curtly.
"We should be going," she said.
"Going?" Timmy echoed faintly. "Going where?"
"Where I tell you we're going," she scoffed. Digging into her pants, she produced a black stone with a swirling energy underneath the surface not unlike the amulet she wore. She squeezed it and they disappeared, reappearing in an underground cave. Timmy tried to break away, hoping that the transportation had distracted her.
He underestimated her grip on his arm. Moving too quickly to account for her strength, he heard a crack and pain jolted through his shoulder. His wrist bone stuck out oddly and he groaned, staring at his godmother who still hadn't released him.
"You don't need to have two working arms right now," she commented coldly. Timmy gasped, both in pain and shock, and Poof floated nearby.
"Poof," he panted, making eye contact with him. "You gotta help me. You gotta do something."
"Poof will do what I will," she snapped. "I say the pain will be a good lesson for you."
"What's wrong with you?" he exclaimed. "You're not Wanda!"
"I am what's left of her," she countered. "Now start walking or I will drag you along."
"What do you mean—"he started and she pressed down on the broken wrist. Timmy screamed, the pain intense enough for him to black out for a second. Poof whimpered and she scoffed.
"It's necessary," she repeated. "Trust me."
"I want my parents," he gasped, tears streaking his face.
"Your parents never cared about you. They wish they'd never had you," she remarked. "Cosmo and I were the ones who loved you."
"And you killed him!" he cried.
"He was a nuisance," she said, shrugging. When she shrugged, it wrenched his arm and he screamed. She glared at him.
"He was your husband!" he protested, pain transforming his voice into a higher pitch.
"Was he?" she inquired, starting down the path. They looked to be in a basement of some sort, with the only light coming from a distant point. Poof huddled close to his family and looked around nervously. Timmy wished he could make him feel better, but he was too busy being frightened and in pain thanks to whatever had possessed Wanda.
"Yes!" he screamed. "Slow down!"
"Walk faster," she countered and increased her pace. "If you have time to ask stupid questions, you have time to walk faster."
"I want—" he started and she stopped, pivoting on her heel. She backhanded him hard enough for his buckteeth to hit his lower lip and bring forth blood. Eyes watering again, he spat out the blood pooling in his mouth. She scrutinized him.
"I don't care what you want," she remarked. "You never cared what I wanted."
"That's not true," he whined.
"Don't lie," she hissed. "Every time you lie, I will hurt you. Do you understand?"
"No…" he said. She growled and yanked him along by the broken wrist. Swallowing back sobs, he permitted it and forced back the questions that threatened to overwhelm him. Wanda was scary, out of her mind, and lethal. She wasn't beyond hurting him to get her point across. What intelligence he possessed argued strongly against talking again. He shuddered, the pain causing his vision to flicker in certain areas.
There was a clear path through whatever someone had stored here. It looked like stacks of chairs and boxes, but he didn't have time to examine them closely. Wanda's hand upon his wrist was insistent and hard, preventing him from hesitating.
Their footsteps and water, dripping from somewhere he couldn't see, were the only sounds beyond his sobbing. He tried to catch his breath, but it was difficult between crying and being rushed along. At last, they stopped in a random spot. He looked up and saw a ladder against the wall to their left.
"He should be here," she snapped.
"Who?" Timmy asked and then bit his tongue. Blood filled his mouth again and he spat it out. Wanda eyed it and the hand upon his arm warmed. He gasped, trying to pull his hand away, and she slapped him again.
Poof stated something and Timmy shook his head. It didn't make sense.
"You're not trying to heal me, are you?" he asked.
His godmother turned cold, emotionless eyes upon him. The hand along his wrist was still warm, hot to the touch. She pulled her hand away and his arm was cold, almost frigid. His wrist was still misshapen.
"Not anymore, I'm not," she snapped.
Cradling his arm to his chest, he sobbed from pain. She examined him and a glimpse of her old warmth and compassion flickered in her eyes, but only for a second. She drew closer to him and he pulled away, shaking. This earned him another slap, though not as hard as the first.
"If I didn't love you, you'd be dead," she stated flatly.
"That's not very comforting," he snapped.
She pulled him closer again and he struggled away. This time, she wrapped her arms around him and he could feel the cold blood on her shirt against his. He whimpered and she locked her arms about his midsection. Reluctantly, he looked up at her. The sobs that wracked his body made her shake too.
"No one will hurt you except for me," she said.
He opened his mouth and she touched her wand in her pocket. His mouth shut and stayed frozen closed. One of her arms snaked around his midsection moved to hold his wrist again and this time, rather than immediate warmth, he felt a trickle, like a breeze brushing against his skin. He whimpered, afraid to look at her, terrified to be in her embrace, and scared of what was to come.
"He's late," she snapped.
"Mama," Poof said, pointing with his rattle. She turned her head, Timmy following her gaze, and a man appeared on the other side of the basement. Moving smoothly, like a shadow gliding, he oozed his way closer to them. When he stopped, he was only a few feet away. His eyes, hair, and clothing were black, so that he blended into their surroundings.
"The boy?" he asked. His voice grated Timmy's ears and he flinched into Wanda.
"The boy is mine," she growled.
"Both of them?" He sounded faintly amused. "I won't begrudge you your fairy son, but the human could be useful."
"The human is mine," she snapped. "We had an agreement."
The man eyed Timmy in a way that made him feel as though invisible hands crawled along his skin. He tried to whimper his godmother's name, but his lips were stuck together. Her hand upon his wrist tightened its grip and felt like an iron upon his skin. In his mind, he yelped. He shuddered and she stroked his sweaty hair.
"Agreements can be rewritten," the man replied. "How much do you want for him?'
"Timmy is not for sale," she snarled.
"Very well," the man said, sounding disappointed. "We shall find another human for our purposes. Perhaps Juandissimo can be persuaded to do away with his godchild."
"I wouldn't count on it," she snapped.
"Why are you so protective over him, anyway?" the man inquired, circling them. Wanda held him closely, her arms folded over his chest. Timmy could hear his heart thundering in his eyes. On the plus side, if one could even consider this situation to have a plus side, his wrist no longer hurt.
"He is my godson," she said. The words sounded almost like an automaton, rote memorization. Timmy shivered and she relaxed her grip on him. He still wouldn't be able to make a run for it, but her handling implied she was being gentler with him.
"That is Fairy World's concern, no longer yours," he replied.
"Timmy is my son," she snapped.
"A son you've taken to abusing?" he commented.
"He had started to ask questions," she said. "He's better off in my hands than he is under your…control."
The man scoffed, reaching to touch his hair. Wanda jerked Timmy back and hissed, bringing her wand out. With one arm, she held Timmy and the other brandished the wand. His mind whirled, trying to determine whether Wanda or this strange man represented the greater threat. While normally he would have sided with his godmother without thought, it was hard to contemplate that now.
"I gave you what you wanted," she snapped. "Now give me what I want."
"We could have such fun, you and I," the man sang at Timmy. Timmy cringed.
"If you even so much as think about it, we're through," she retorted.
"Very well," the man sighed, although the longing look he gave Timmy argued against him giving up for the long term. He produced an envelope out of thin air and handed it to her. With a meaningful look at her godson, she released him to open it. Timmy swallowed, looking down the length of the basement.
"If you run, I will catch you," the man said.
Wanda eyed him and Timmy stayed put. The man's gaze gave him the creeps.
Wishing he could speak, although aware that he'd probably have nothing worthwhile to contribute, he stared at the floor. Wanda opened the envelope behind him, inspected its contents, and stuffed it into her pocket. She nodded.
"We'll be in touch," she remarked coldly.
"If you ever change your mind about the boy…" he trailed off and she growled, sounding more like an angry dragon than a fairy.
"Over my dead body," she snapped.
"That can be arranged…" the man's voice trailed off and he disappeared as he had arrived. Timmy glanced at the ladder, Poof, and finally, reluctantly, at his godmother. Wanda smiled and stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. He pulled away and she stopped.
"Your parents won't miss you," she said. "They won't even remember you exist."
Timmy worked to open his mouth to ask her about it, but it was still stuck shut.
"I'll fix that in a while," she said. "But not too soon."
The problem, she reasoned, was that there was no greater good. Cosmo and Wanda had represented chaotic good, their master lawful good, and no one trumped them. At least, she could find no other fairies in Dimmsdale who might. Yet when the good had become irrevocably corrupted, there had to be someone, a champion of the light, to save the day. A half fairy, half human girl was not going to cut it.
Still, she worried. She didn't like what was going on, any more than the pall of darkness that had descended upon the city. To keep herself occupied, she had hoarded all the magical books she could find and read them in the hopes of finding a solution. The problem was that the people in this world thought magic had to do with stupid things, nothing at all useful, and she wound up flinging the books across the room in a fit of disgust.
It almost felt like the city had absorbed the evil within it and now paid it back in kind. Vicky hadn't come home yet. The way things looked she probably wouldn't make it home. She was worried, but not for her sister. As cruel and heartless as it sounded, she would never be worried about her sister.
Tootie drew a deep, staggering breath and stared out the window. Timmy Turner had been missing for twenty four hours. His parents claimed they had no son. And all over the city, people were rioting. No one would listen to her when she protested things were going terribly wrong. She felt like Cassandra.
Rolling around on the bed, she grabbed another book. A vision of red eyes tinged with pink haunted her.
"Wanda…" she sighed.
The fairy appeared, Timmy at her side. Tootie yelped, diving at him. A magical barrier appeared, separating them. The fairy was in human form, for some odd reason, and her whole aura was tinged with black.
"You called me?" she inquired.
"Not intentionally," she said, backing up.
Wanda scrutinized her. "Fairy World doesn't care what becomes of you."
Tootie wasn't certain what to make of this. She gritted her teeth and mustered her courage, which was rather difficult considering what she faced. Drawing steady breaths, she stared at the fairy before her.
"What about you?" she squeaked and could have cursed. She meant to sound daring and brave. Instead, she sounded stupid.
Wanda didn't reply. Instead, she looked around the room. This gave Tootie the opportunity to look at Timmy, whose lips were stuck shut. He whimpered at her and she waved her fingers, magic flying from her fingertips. Timmy started, whining, and Wanda left off her examination of the books near the window.
"I didn't think you intended to let him know," she said.
"It just happened!" she protested.
Wanda's gaze was dark. "You might want to consider your options."
"I'm not turning evil!" she whined. At this, Timmy inched closer to her. It seemed, between a rock and a hard place, he'd considered her the better choice. She wished she could say she was pleased.
"They'll continue to ignore you until you no longer pose a threat," she replied.
"What is that supposed to mean?" she snapped.
"Come, Timmy," Wanda ordered.
Although it was muffled, it sounded like he'd replied, "I'm staying here!"
The fairy rolled her eyes, squeezed her wand, and her godson zoomed back to her side. Tootie grabbed his arm and Wanda smirked.
"If you follow him, you come with me too," she said.
"I won't let you hurt him!"
"I haven't hurt him," she replied and then paused, considering her words. "Not permanently. Not like the others."
"What others?" Tootie asked. Timmy wouldn't meet her eyes.
"I can offer you more than being ignored and having your powers backfire," she said.
"I don't—leave Timmy alone!" she whined.
"So be it," the fairy replied, her tone heavy, and squeezed her wand. Timmy's hand found hers and held it, though it was trembling.
"The light corrupts and everything mortal is fleeting," Wanda said as they fell into the darkness. Tootie squeezed Timmy's hand and he turned away, breathing hard through his nose.